One of the most popular poker games is the Texas Hold’em game. This is a community poker game in which the dealer has a certain number of cards dealt face up. Since it’s a community game, the players are allowed to share the cards wherein the player can use the cards that he has and the community cards that are dealt face up to produce a winning hand. The game obviously starts off with the blind bets and then the players are given two cards each.
Then starts the first betting round after which the community cards are dealt face up, three to be more precise. The dealing of the first three community cards is also known as the flop. Then the second betting round ensues. After this is the Turn in which the fourth community card is dealt. This is then followed by the third betting round which is then followed by the dealing of the last community card which is known as the River. Then you have the final betting round and then the Showdown. This wraps up the basic game play of online Texas Hold’em poker.
Now lets move on to the three basic concepts of the Texas Hold’em strategy. The first one would be you’re not just playing with the cards, but you’re also playing the players. I know this sounds rather deep but if you think about it for a minute, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. This is brought about by knowing what your opponent’s strategy will be like and accordingly adapting your own strategy to use against him. There is a little known secret when it comes to using anything to your advantage too.
For instance, let’s just take your position on the table. These positions would include the late, middle and the early positions. The player occupying the late position has the utmost advantage since he can carefully observe the reactions of all the other opponents. Whereas, the player sitting in the early position would simply be at a huge disadvantage because he will always be required to have a stronger hand.
The next concept that you should be aware of is when to raise the bet. Well, you typically raise your bet, when you have a stronger hand. This is a well known fact anyways. On the other hand, you can also raise when you have a really poor hand and simply want to scare your opponents away by bluffing them.
You can even raise if you are sure that you have the second best hand in the table. This is done for the sole purpose of sending the weaker players home. The last concept that I’m about to state will have to deal with the Gap concept as well as the Sandwich effect. In case of the Gap concept, you simply have to have a better hand in case you want to take advantage of any other player even if he has raised a bet. This is mainly the psychological behavior of the players who would rather avoid any kind of confrontations with players who already have a better hand. Then comes the Sandwich effect which mainly focuses your position on the table. This means that if you’re in the early position, you definitely need a stronger hand than all of your opponents to stay in the pot.